Raising the profile of ‘space’

The UK Space Agency is awarding £325,000 to the UK Association for Science and Discovery Centres (ASDC) to bring the latest space science to children and families across the UK.

The aim is to create new resources based on real scientific and engineering challenges, including those facing the operation of UK spaceports, rockets and spaceplanes.

Together, up to 14 UK science centres and museums will offer activities to 200,000 children and adults until March 2021, building on the success of ASDC’s Destination Space education programme, which reached more than 900,000 people during Tim Peake’s Principia mission.

Meanwhile, as the Launch UK programme continues to build momentum (its aim is for the UK to have a greater share of the commercial spaceflight market, worth an estimated £25 billion over the next 20 years), a further £600,000 is on offer for businesses capable of providing range control services; these cover a wide variety of tasks, from tracking rockets and spaceplanes in flight to notifying users of airspace when launches are taking place.

Speaking at the Appleton Space Conference at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire, Graham Turnock, chief executive of the UK Space Agency (www.gov.uk/ukspaceagency), said: “Our spaceflight programme includes a series of education and outreach activities, focusing on space launches from the UK, which I hope will play a major role in inspiring the next generation of space scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs.

"We have also published a new call for proposals to deliver range control services, which are vital for ensuring the safety of UK spaceflight operations once they begin in a few years’ time.”